Follow TV Tropes

Following

Paper Thin Disguise / Comic Books

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/threemidgets_3559.jpg
Uncle Scrooge almost sees through it... almost.

  • Many old-school comics, even up until the 90s, had superheroes disguising themselves by... wearing a trenchcoat and hat over their brightly coloured costumes, leading to scenes such as Captain America managing to infiltrate a hospital in such a disguise over his usual outfit, which includes a bright blue head-covering cowl.
  • Fantastic Four: In the past, The Thing would try to disguise his rock-like features with a hat, trenchcoat and sunglasses. Ben is six foot and change tall, roughly three feet wide, and has skin that requires careful analysis to distinguish from segmented orange stone. Even in New York, that stands out. These days, Ben doesn't really bother.
  • Asterix:
    • In Asterix and Cleopatra, Obelix attempts to disguise himself as an Egyptian worker in order to get some magic potion by wearing an Egyptian headgear. Getafix is not fooled, to Obelix's utter bafflement.
    • In Asterix in Switzerland, in order to sneak past the Romans, Petitsuix disguises Asterix and Obelix with a bow and arrows (in all fairness, the Romans in Geneva did not know Asterix and Obelix by sight, so all the disguise was supposed to achieve was to make them appear like Helvetii, not foreigners).
  • Atomic Robo's archnemesis, Dr. Dinosaur, is capable of disguising himself as virtually anything by donning an appropriate hat and shirt. For the uninitiated, Dr. Dinosaur is a dromaeosaurid. He is a rich orange-brown colour, with scales, eyes mounted on the side of his head, and an enormous mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. This is akin to disguising yourself as a wolf by putting on a jumper made from grey wool. It usually works perfectly up until Robo or another major character sees him, at which point he tends to be outed.
  • Batman:
    • A recurring element of lore is Matches Malone, a cover identity Batman assumes occasionally. It consists of Bruce Wayne with a fake mustache, a plaid suit, and a match in his teeth. It's generally proven effective — sometimes lampshaded, sometimes not.
    • In older comics, the Joker and the Penguin would sometimes go out in public "disguised" by nothing but a pair of Round Hippie Shades. It's a toss-up as to whether it's this trope or everyone was just too shit-scared to call the cops anyways.
    • The Joker also has this problem with his aliases. One of his favourites being "Joseph Kerr".
    • Batgirl has this as part of her outfit in Batman: White Knight. Instead of the traditional cowl, she merely has a Domino Mask and a pair of bat ears. When the Joker publicly reveals Batgirl's identity in Batman: Curse of the White Knight, he mocks an embarrassed Jim Gordon for not recognizing working with his own daughter the whole wihtout recognizing her, being fooled by a simple mask.
  • In Big Trouble in Little China, when Jack takes Pete to Chinatown to find out if his friends can break the black magic bond between them, Jack disguises him with a baseball cap, sunglasses, spiked dog collar, and a t-shirt, none of which in any way hides the fact that Pete is a gigantic, furry hell-beast.
  • In Bone, Phoney's scam for the Great Cow Race requires Smiley dressing up in a cow costume to pose as "The Mystery Cow" to keep everyone from betting on Gran'ma Ben. Since realistic cow costumes aren't available in the Valley's medieval setting, Smiley has to make his by hand. Needless to say, Phoney has to go to great lengths to keep anyone from getting a close look at "The Mystery Cow" before the race starts.
  • Captain America: For a while, Steve Rogers disguised himself as a hero known as The Captain. The costume looked identical to his normal Captain America costume except for darker colors and a slightly different chest-insignia. He even threw a shield around which was also had a slight color-change. Here is a cover depicting both costumes. This costume somehow fooled everyone, including his allies in The Avengers (for added hilarity, the roster included the super-geniuses Tony Stark, King T'Challa, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, and Hank Pym at the time). The costume would later be worn by the USAgent.
  • Deadpool tries disguising himself at an A.I.M soldier in order for him and Captain America to get Wolverine's DNA and prevent them from cloning him. His disguise is nothing but a yellow trash bag, but it still sort of works—the soldier he talks to naturally notices that it's a trash bag and not a real A.I.M. mask, but assumes that the person wearing it is a real A.I.M. Soldier who's wearing it as a joke. (After all, what's more likely? That somebody risking his life to infiltrate A.I.M. would actually use a trash bag as a disguise, or that a workmate would goof around?
    Deadpool: S'up? You got Wolverine's DNA here?
    A.I.M Soldier: Is that a trash bag on your head? Karl? Quit goofing around, man.
  • Deathstroke's daughter Rose Wilson (aka Ravager) is an Asian girl with silver hair, a look that isn't exactly common. Lampshaded when Robin points out the absurdity of Rose having a costumed identity despite making no effort to disguise her distinctive hair.
    Robin: What's the mask for, by the way? I mean, who's she fooling? How many hot chicks with silver hair are walking around? "Gee...I wonder who that could be!"
  • Empyre: Part-way through the event, Skrull Empress Rk'll tries replacing Hulkling. Neither Captain Marvel or Johnny Storm - who we should note haven't had much interaction with Hulking - are fooled for an instant when the normally good-natured Teddy is suddenly on-board with annihilating Earth. While they can't prove it, they are teleported right to Wiccan, who confirms it just by looking at a recording and states instantly that it's not his husband.
  • The Flash: Jay Garrick wore no mask at all. He simply vibrated to keep his features blurry. How it worked when he'd get knocked out is anybody's guess.
  • Super Goof is just Goofy in long underwear, but only his nephew Gilbert can recognise him. On House of Mouse, when everyone tries to figure out who Super Goof is, they come to the conclusion that it's Dumbo.
  • Green Arrow:
    • Despite having facial hair that can most kindly be described as 'extremely distinctive' used to hide his identity as Oliver Queen behind a mask that was little more than a pair of tiny, diamond-shaped pieces of cloth with eyeholes cut out. In Longbow Hunters, Shado openly expressed surprise that it was supposed to be a secret. Oliver Queen was also the mayor of his city. So literally the Mayor with very distinct facial hair was fighting crime in a lazy disguise and it worked. It is also recognized in Mia Dearden's origin story.
      Mia: Oh, please! I'm not a total idiot! That little mask you wear doesn't exactly Batman your face. And the beard's a dead giveaway, too.
    • Lampshaded in Justice League (2011). Green Arrow wakes up in a hospital bed and finds he's still wearing his mask, and is told by Steve Trevor that they left it on to protect his identity. Ollie bemusedly points out that the mask does very little to actually protect his identity if he's not wearing his hooded costume.
  • Green Lantern: Hal Jordan's disguise consists of a tiny domino mask. His buddy the Flash even commented on it at the beginning of Blackest Night.
    Hal: Clark wears glasses and you're worried about me?
    Barry Allen: Clark slouches, lowers his voice an octave and wears clothes two sizes small for him.
  • "Working Holiday" was an unpublished Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi story which opens with Ami and Yumi visiting Dizzyland Amusement Park in rather flimsy disguises (Ami in a pith helmet and mustache, Yumi in a baseball cap and clown nose) to keep their fans from noticing them and mobbing them for autographs and photos. It doesn't work, naturally.
  • Iznogoud: Iznogoud's idea of disguising himself as a pumpkin seller is to carry a pumpkin around. And it works, too. It works so well his own guards won't let him back into the palace until he drops the pumpkin.
  • In one of the original Justice Society of America comics, Johnny Thunder puts on a cap and gown and an obviously fake mustache to fool some criminals, who are more puzzled than fooled.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe:
    • In Don Rosa's story "The Last Lord of El Dorado", Flintheart Glomgold follows Scrooge and his nephews with a series of incredibly obvious disguises (including a female waitress and a nun — Glomgold's beard made things even more obvious). When he reveals himself, Scrooge mocks him and tells him that he'd known all along it was him. (Donald was fooled, though.)
    • He's still better at disguises than the Beagle Boys. At least he doesn't wear a black mask while he's trying to disguise himself as a waitress. They pulled it off well a number of times. A group of Beagles wearing hollowed out Robots passed undetected for robot workers, and a latex mask was all it took for each of them to look like a grizzled old lighthouse keeper. And those are examples of when they were really making an effort. Their favourite disguise is a false beard.
    • Magica De Spell tends to use magic for her disguises, but unless copying someone who looks nothing like her, she tends to end up looking like herself in different clothing and a wig. Add to this the fact that even allowing loads of Negative Continuity, she must have pulled off the same trick almost as many times as the Beagle Boys. You'd think Scrooge would learn to beware of groups of identical stout guys with beards and sunglasses or duck women with green eyelids making him offers that are too good to be true.
    • An early Paperinik-story has every belittled husband in Duckburg dressing up as Paperinik and playing mean pranks on their Paperinik-worshipping wives to ruin his reputation. Despite the fact that none of them look remotely like him (most of them aren't even ducks!), it works perfectly — at least until the real Paperinik takes action and exposes them.
  • Justified in The Maxx. The Isz have a latent psychic ability that convinces people looking at them that they're actually human whenever they put on a disguise, despite the fact that they're little dark blue Plant Aliens with lots of teeth. Note that this apparently only works on people who don't know they're doing it.
  • Monty the Dinosaur: Before he met Sophie, the closest Monty ever got to a human was one time wherein he wore a fake mustache and nothing else. Said fake mustache tickled his nose, causing him to sneeze it off and blow his cover.
  • In The Movement, Virtue goes to see Captain Meers of the police without wearing the small mask that she uses when she fights crime.
    Captain Meers: You aren't wearing the mask.
    Virtue: Oh no, you might see the skin around my eyes!
  • In Issue #3 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW), Pinkie's plan for avoiding themselves getting mixed up with disguised Changelings is to wear costumes of themselves so that they can recognize each other.
  • The comic book version of Howard Zinn's book A People's history of American Empire has a FBI agent spying on activist Dan Berrigan in 1970, wearing Groucho Glasses and a wig.
  • In PS238, it is suspected that this may be Tyler Marlocke's only super power. Keeping your secret identity in this world full of supers is described as being "as hard as keeping your email from spammers." Yet no one recognises him as Moon Shadow. Not his classmates, not his parents. He goes so far as to leave the room as Tyler and come back as Moon Shadow and nobody figures it out. He's very disturbed by this.
    Tyler: That shouldn't have worked!
    • However, his non-superpowered best friend is unaffected by this, to the point of wondering why Tyler is wearing a silly costume when he first meets Moon Shadow.
    • Exaggerated by Toby, a clone of Tyler that has superpowers. Due to how he was made, he has all of Tyler's memories... except, somehow, the ones related to Tyler being Moon Shadow.
  • In the Sensational She-Hulk graphic novel, after being taken hostage by S.H.I.E.L.D., the heroine manages to escape from her cell by reverting to human form and slipping through the bars. However, her attempt to pass through the Helicarrier incognito as Jennifer isn't very successful; no one actually recognizes her, but when someone notices she's barefoot, it's sort of suspicious. (Of coure, it's doubtful she thought it would work, but it's not like there were any better options.)
  • In one issue of The Simpsons, Homer spends eight hours in the makeup chair being made to look like Mr. Burns so he can infiltrate the nuclear power plant, which has been taken over by Smithers clones. A lot of effort is put into the disguise, but it's still clearly Homer under the suit, wig, and fake liver spots. Despite this, the clones are fooled... right up until Homer gets distracted by a box of donuts and starts stuffing his face, ruining his makeup in the process.
    Smithers #64: Gasp! Look everyone—a wolf in Burns' clothing! A fat wolf!
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Superman:
    • In a Silver Age comic, actors are being auditioned to play Superman in an alien race's film. Since all humans look alike to the aliens, a severely overweight, middle-aged actor gets the role, because he heroically saves the day. The aliens can't distinguish him from Superman physically, but his bravery was enough to get him cast.
    • Superman has been doing this so much it spawned the related trope of Clark Kenting. There have been numerous explanations over the years for how people close to him don't see through his (total lack of) disguise. Probably the most common explanation is that Clark changing basically everything about his mannerisms is enough that even if someone notices the resemblance, they simply don't believe someone as seemingly unremarkable as Clark could possibly be the near mythical being that is Superman. It's also a common idea that at least some people who actually know him well enough to work it out DO know, there's just not really anything to be gained by revealing the information.
    • In The Supergirl from Krypton (2004), Supergirl wonders how a pair of glasses can fool anybody. Then she bumps into one Superman statue and understands: Earth folks regard Superman as someone larger than life, so they cannot believe a mild-mannered, quiet, average-looking guy like Clark Kent can possibly to be the Earth's greatest champion.
    • In the 60's, a brown wig is everything Supergirl needed to make nobody in her small town or her college campus suspected she was Linda Danvers.
    • Supergirl's Three Super Girl-Friends: Saturn Girl wears a mere lead face mask when she first greets Supergirl and teases her into guessing her identity. And still, Kara takes several minutes until she realizes that blonde telepath who knows her identity, claims having met her before, and has the same hairstyle, clothes and voice than Saturn Girl is Saturn Girl.
    • "The Super-Steed of Steel": Biron disguises himself as a fortune-teller by wearing a turban -which leaves his face completely unconcealed- and starry robe. Kara ponders that man seems vaguely familiar but, despite her perfect memory, she does not realize what he looks right like the rodeo star whom she met a little while ago.
    • Superman: Exile: Small-time private detective Matt Stockman breaks into Clark Kent's apartment while Superman is in self-imposed exile in space, hired by ex-Lexcorp scientist Amanda McCoy, and is killed by Intergang forces trying to kill Clark for his recent articles on Intergang, because Stockman looked enough like Clark to pass for him in a dimly-lit apartment while he was wearing a heavy coat and jacket.
  • The Tick
    • The comic story "Night of A Million Zillion Ninja" features scores of evil Ninja standing around a house that they are staking out, each one holding a single twig. To passers-by they state, "We are a hedge. Please move along." The homeowner is entirely fooled, though he doesn't remember planting a hedge in the first place.
    • Caped Wonder took Clark Kenting up to eleven. He wore glasses, which fooled everyone except the Idiot Hero. A fight between the two heroes occurs and the glasses are broken. The Caped Wonder does the "nerd glasses" hand signals in order to disguise himself when a co-worker shows up.
  • W.I.T.C.H.: In the tenth issue, Will manages to pull this one off with Vathek.
    Will: We'll kill two birds with one stone!
    Vathek: Do you plan to disguise me as a bird or a stone?
  • Wolverine's disguise when roving Madripoor when he and the other X-Men were thought dead consisted of an eyepatch and refraining from using his claws. An old friend eventually informed the 5'3" tall extremely hairy man with the odd hairstyle that the only reason none of those who knew him called him on it was fear of getting gutted.
    • Jubilee also remarked once how lame a disguise it was. (Seeing how she was one of a select few people who he didn't mind sarcastic comments from.)
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Queen Clea thinks that she can trick Steve by wearing a trench coat and holding the sleeve up over her mouth. Without removing her very distinctive headgear. Steve is not fooled, but pretends to be in order to get her to drop her guard so that he can arrest her.
  • Several of the Young Avengers, as they largely didn't wear masks of any kind. Cassie and Eli wore a Domino Mask each, but also modelled themselves after her father and his grandfather respectfully (Scott Lang, Ant-Man II, and Isiah Bradley, the prototype Captain America), otherwise the rest of the group at best wore goggles and/or Cool Shades (Tommy and Kate), or simply nothing to hide their faces (Billy).


Top